Author: Office Manager

Many choices are unconcerned with risk. There’s not enough information to assess it properly, so its consideration only paralyses — like vociferous warnings about unspecific threats. In other cases, there’s nothing worth conserving, so high risk is acceptable. Sometimes it’s better to have nothing than being stuck with something you don’t want. This latter situation…

My boss called me to sternly express that I had not done what was expected and that my actions were unacceptable. I thought I knew what this word meant, and expected a formal statement that I was fired for doing what could never in any way be tolerated of anyone. Instead we reasonably discussed expectations,…

When you first hear news of a co-worker resigning, it feels like a small death. Everything you’ve come to appreciate about them for so long will no longer be yours to enjoy, and they will be gone forever. Even though they gave two weeks notice, each day you are staring at a ghost. Their impending…

A young guy a few cubes over who is about 10 pounds overweight despite playing in sports leagues announced his current goal was to have six pack abs by summer, presumably as an indicator of his desired level of fitness. One of the older guys who used to be a wrestler tried to give him…

Do you really want to be somewhere organized and effective? This question sounds crazy at first because so many people complain about their insane work environments. It’s far easier to endure a chaotic work environments where projects are regularly late and fail than to endure crazy bosses, rigid rules that serve no purpose, and an…

When we don’t know what to do, we fall back on rituals. We try to find the closest ready-made approximations and jam it in as a fix. By conveniently assuming dissimilar things are identical, we can treat them the same. Most people have no capability to evaluate, so apply frameworks conceived by others and assume…

I try not to watch others too closely. I’m not the NSA or CIA. The two professional workmen had a long list of tasks for getting my newly purchased house in order, and they had decided to milk it for a one time gain since we had initially agreed to a daily rate. They’d make…

Email from Lowell: My job for the federal government is full of people who treat it like a prison sentence. “I get to retire in 6 years, 13 weeks, and 3 days” they say like inmates enduring a long punishment until they can finally get free to do something of their own choosing and take…

To maximize your income you have to switch jobs every year or two. Employers will lay you off at an instant, so you can’t reasonably have any loyalty. The relationship is just a temporary convenience without any promises or future. We churn between jobs, needing only to pass an interview to get into a position…

A recent study published in the Harvard Business Review of ventilation levels affecting cognitive function measured the quality of office environments and found that typical building conditions lead to low levels of productivity. Indoor air quality often suffers from poor ventilation, chemical exposure to cleaners, dry erase markers, perfume, and dry cleaned clothes, and high…